2011

The sun has set on 2010. Should we have a party? A funeral? Say a prayer? Can you dig it back up. Do you want to? Maybe we just need to say a few parting words over the last year and wish it well. Believe that it is now in a better place and that you will be too. Let it go. Tomorrow the sun will rise in the year 2011. Sounds futuristic.

It is. It's your future.

Now . . .  turn around. Walk away from the sunset with the memories. Good and bad. Wake up to the sunrise and go find some fresh dirt to play in. Plant some seeds. Let those seeds be the dreams you have wished for upon a star. "If your heart is in your dream no request is too extreme". That's what Jimminy Cricket sang to me when I was young, and I became a believer in dreams coming true. A dream starts with a thought . . . a feeling . . .  a picture in your head of what you truly want if you could wave a magic wand, blink your eyes or just close them . . . entering into your wonderful imagination where all is possible.

If you can dream it, then you can begin to speak it. Speak it into being as God spoke the heavens and the earth back into being after it went null and void with darkness upon the face of the deep.

Where do you begin? Light. Then you can see. Create the world in which you want to live and be happy. Do it now. Consciously separate the darkness from the light and let the light rule over the day and the night.

It's a new year. 2011. That's a good binary, back-to-basic number to begin your journey. A year of discoveries . . . about yourself . . .  a lot of things. Make it happen. Be bold. Be you. Be happy. Why do you think we all cheer 'Happy New Year' at the stroke of midnight? Because that's what we all want . . . to be happy.

HAPPY NEW YEAR ! 

(c) nancy 12.31.2010

The Moon and all its Colors

As some of you know, the Lunar Eclipse falls on the Winter Solstice this Tuesday. So get up sleepy heads or just don't go to bed because this phenomenon doesn't happen every year. You might see the moon change colors from gray to orange to red. Where's that high tech camera when you need it, right? I'm sure we will be able to go online the morning after and view some awesome shots taken from all over the globe. Especially from NASA, I hope.

Maybe you should mark that day as a day that you too will do something out of the ordinary . . . in a good way, my friend. Don't do something out of the ordinary that'll hurt you or someone else, O.K.?

Okay.

Now that we have that ironed out, I suggest a change of color for you too. How about having a total eclipse of your attitude? If it's been dark, then let there be light!

A total eclipse of your relationship? If it's been colorless, turn the colored spotlights on it.

A total eclipse of your person? Cut your hair, grow it, get a perm, get extensions, shave it, lose weight, gain weight, eat a cookie.

Just don't get all Lunar toons about it. You don't want to freak out your cat.

Remember that the Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year so get crackin' with your eclipse ideas. Your reward? A better you staying up to see a big, beautiful red moon hanging out in the sky changing its colors too.

(c) nancy 12.19.2010

Halloween 1959

It's Halloween Night

It's Halloween Night

The Ghosts and Goblins are out Tonight

It's Halloween Night

It's Halloween Night

If you don't WATCH OUT

You might get a FRIGHT !!

(c) nancy October 2010

Fall 
everchanging season
of reds
oranges
browns
Earth 
covered with
maple
oaks
dogwood
magnolia
Leaves 
that clog
gutters
grass
street curbs
Piles 
raked
stuffed
bagged
Children
running
jumping
splashing
Desire 
for changing
weather
circumstances
Love 
of family
Treat-or-Treating
Thanks Giving
Christmas
Sparkling 
white lights
hope
dreams
wishes
to come true


© Nancy9.22. 2010

KICKING A BALL

That's the title of my school project this month. I am in massage school and my class is learning all about the muscles in the human body. I am learning how "awesomely and wonderfully made" we are as humans. I don't know how a person can say that there is no God if they begin to learn all the intricacies that went into our bodies being formed, made, and created. It's pretty fascinating but overwhelming when you have to memorize all those muscles and what they do. By the way, who was in charge of naming them? It's all Greek and Latin to me.

For instance . . .  what really goes on in the body when a person does something as simple as kicking a ball? That's what I have to research and write about and hand in three weeks from now. I am having fun browsing through wikipedia and other places in the web of information. Some of the old Grey's Anatomy drawings of the leg and thigh muscles are fabulous. Just for fun, here are a few of the names of these muscles . . . 

Flexor Digitorum Longus

Soleus

Psoas Major

Popliteus

Adductor Brevis, Longus and Magnus

Some of these muscle groups sound like brothers who all play on the football team at Superjock High. Others sound like a spell straight out of a Harry Potter movie. Imagine yourself holding your special wand in your hand, waving it around in the air as you say with conviction, "Flexor Digitorum Longus!" and POOF! . . . your enemy's leg grows three inches and they begin to waddle around in circles on their way to their potion's class. You feel pretty smug before you trip over your own robes, falling flat on your gluteus maximus.

So if you get bored at work or just want to learn something about yourself, check out the human body and all its muscles on the world wide web. Take a vacation inside your body and travel through your arteries and veins and get a glimpse of how wonderful and awesome you are!!

(c) Nancy 8.3. 2010

Debbie Downer Days

Do you ever wake up a different person? You went to bed all happy and woke up all sad? Who is the person with my body laying in bed all Debbie Down in the Dumps  . .  not wanting to get out and start the day with a zip in her step and a song in her heart? Did the bluebird of happiness fly off in the night to meet up with a nightingale and leave you chirpless?

Here’s a few things you can do . . . 

Call a friend that will tell you that you deserve to be a Little Debbie today because of this and that and get validation for your feelings of lowliness. Once you’ve gotten it out to a sympathetic ear and hear that it’s okay to be you no matter who you are, then call a friend that makes you giggle.

Now you can laugh at yourself with someone and begin to feel pretty good. Life is funny, your friend is funny, you’re funny and the situation you find yourself in will pass.

While you’re talking with this kooky friend you can simultaneously open up a can or a bottle of Coca-cola, pour it over some crunchy ice, and let the fizz give you that cleaning out feeling as it goes down your throat like Draino through a clogged sink, taking with it your woes, freeing up what is making you sluggish. Who cares if it’s eight o’clock in the morning!

Now it’s time to show Debbie who’s boss. Pick out something colorful from your closet. If you don’t have anything but black on black then pick a wildflower from the side of the street as you go to work or take the kids to school and pin it to your shirt. Be real wild and put it in your hair . . .  without the bugs, of course. Decide you’re going to treat yourself to that People Magazine during your lunchtime. Go ahead! Who cares what the person behind you in line is thinking. Buy it and eat something that you normally wouldn’t eat, just for fun, and sit under a tree and have yourself a picnic. Tell Debbie Downer that you’re glad she can understand your woes but that she can take the rest of the day/afternoon/month off. You’ll call her if you need her.

In the meantime the sun is starting to come out . . .  today . . .  not tomorrow . . .  and you can be proud of yourself that you conquered your depression.

One day at a time, darling. Second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour. Life is full of itsy bitsy successes that pile up on each other to make one, big Yes!!

Hang in there. Breathe.

© Nancy 7.15.2010

A Butterfly Kiss From God

Sometimes you just need someone to tell you that everything is going to be okay.

Maybe you were two years old and got a “boo-boo” on your knee from falling down in the driveway.

Maybe your mom kissed it to “make it feel better” and your dad picked you up and told you that you were okay.

It doesn’t change

when you get older.

But if your mom or your dad aren’t around to kiss your hurts to make them better or pick you up, hug you, and tell you everything’s going to be okay . . . 

then what do you do?

Look around.

Maybe you’ll get a butterfly kiss from God  
  like I did yesterday.

I had heard something that was disconcerting and went out into my yard to water the flowers and be peaceful.

And a beautiful, orange and black butterfly landed on my shirt over my heart.

I looked down, then looked up, and said, “Thank You!”

Butterfly kisses from God

make everything better.


© Nancy 7.10.2010

THINK ABOUT IT ...

I went into a store the other day to look at the selection of books on the shelves. What to read . . . what to read.

Actually, I went in to take something back and the person at the register said that I could not be reimbursed but that I would be given store credit. So I walked over to the books and began scanning the titles. Since this store had items regarding the healing arts it contained stones, CD’s for meditation and massage, teas, and such. I just wanted something that I considered ‘normal’. I went to the book section and found all kinds of normal and out-of-this-world literature.

The book that caught my eye was a beautifully bound small one with a powder blue colored jacket, gilded paper edges, a gold ribbon for a bookmark, and the beginning words of a Bible verse on the cover: As A Man Thinketh by James Allen. This verse has to be one of my favorites and it comes from Proverbs 23:7. The first part of the verse reads “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." 

So I picked it up, it felt good in my hands, and I wondered if I had read it back in the 70's when I was reading not only the Bible for the first time but also inspirational books by Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar, Napolean Hill, Norman Vincent Peale, etc. I decided that if I had read this book that it would still be a good thing to have, that I really liked the look of it anyway and that I would buy it with my store credit.

I love the smell of new books. It is a smell of pages yet to be turned, words yet to be read, adventures yet to be experienced if only in one’s mind. This “Keepsake Edition”, in its original publication in 1903, did not have a brief biography of James Allen nor his final book entitled Eight Pillars of Prosperity. But it did have words that are powerful and thoughtful. Words which are now repackaged in 2010 and sold in bookstores under different titles and by different authors. There is no new thing or rather thought, may I say, under the sun. There are definitely new things . . .  ipods, Kindles, electronics of every kind. But new thoughts?

I don’t think so.

I have been reading a book about Indians and their plight. The book is written by a man who married an Indian woman and in the story, he incorporates Indian beliefs and sayings. He wrote that this particular tribe calls God ‘the Creator Who Creates By Thinking What will Be’. I would like to add some words to the end of this phrase and say ‘the Creator Who Creates By Thinking What Will Be And Speaks It Into Existence’.

Just look at chapter one in Genesis. 

So I thought to buy this book and said, “Thank you” to the person behind the cash register. Carrying this little blue-bound book in a bag to my car, I began to be excited about opening its golden-edged pages to read what James Allen thought to write about.

Here are some of his thoughts:

“A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.”

“As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them.”

“As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills.”

“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; . . . ” “Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.” (Does this sound like a popular book title to you or a new earth law?)

“The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of thought . . . ”

“Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results: . . ”

“The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colors which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever moving thoughts.”

There are no new thoughts under the sun. Just new book titles and new authors and a new generation who will read the new books and think they are reading new thoughts.

I don’t think so.

What do you think?

© Nancy 7.5.2010

BLUE SKIES

Recently I wrote a blog about RAINBOWS. Today is all about BLUE SKIES.

When I got online this morning my main page had the age-old question, “Why is the sky blue?”, written with other questions and where to find the answers. Since I have asked the sky blue question myself, I read on. To make a long story short, I will give you a link so you can read the answer as well! But for me I just like a true blue sky. Why? It’s pretty!! It’s just that simple. It’s even prettier if it has bunches of clouds dancing around in it. The clouds can be huge and billowing or ethereal and wispy . . .  barely there . . .  transparent.

What do you like? Think about it.

But if you want details, here is a non-scientific-I’m-going-to-Cliff-Note-it-for-you-explanation to that question for not only you but for your little one that constantly asks “Why, why, why?”

Here goes: 

“Why is the sky blue?”

The sky is blue because that’s what you see with your eyes. But that’s not all that the sky is . . .  it’s really made up of some of the crayon colors in your Crayola Box. Let’s go get them and line them up on the kitchen counter.

Ready? Now get out these colors . . .  what you see in a rainbow. That’s right!! Those colors would be red, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Ask your parents to look up the word “indigo” for you. Remember the next time you see a rainbow in the sky that the tiny raindrops that are falling on your face are the very same thing that the light from the sky shone through and broke up into tiny colors of red, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet to form a big, beautiful rainbow. So all those colors are there in the sky but your eyes usually only see the blue on a clear day.

And here are some more facts about blue:

That color in the sky has, what really smart people found out, was a longer wavelength. You can understand that better as you get older and can know what a wavelength is, but for now, it means that it lasts longer and stays longer in the sky hanging around with the other blues just waiting for you to look up and ask the question, “Why is the sky blue?!!!”

But if you, mom or dad, want more details, then you can go to: http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/sky_blue.html
and try to answer your little one’s question to his or her heart's content. Or you can just take your little one's hand, go outside, point to the blue sky above, and say, "Isn't that pretty!"

© Nancy 6.28.2010

Happy Father’s Day,
DAD...

I Love You
!!!

HUMIDITY

It's HOT !!! Summertime hit with high temperatures this week and the humidity followed suit. Ugh. The more I age as a fine wine, the more I dislike feeling as if I am swimming through the deep end of a pool to get to my car in a steamy parking lot. Might as well carry a beach towel around my neck to dry off once I do unlock my car to get in and thank God, once again, for those individuals who envisioned the idea of air conditioning a home and then a vehicle.

But with the humid days of summer come the glorious thunderstorms and downpours that make even a shingled roof sound like your grandmother's tin roof out in the country. Ahhh . . the smell of fresh rain on the way with a promise of coolness is worth opening the front door to take a gulp of it into my lungs. Breathe in . .  breathe out. And the hot sun will begin to turn the tomatoes red-orange on the vine along next to the basil that will co-mingle on that white bread spread with mayo that will find its way into my mouth. Yum.

The zucchini and the yellow squash plants are producing big, beautiful leaves that hide the deep yellow flowers that will produce fresh veggies for my plate. Guess what? You are eating sunshine. Seriously!!! And I am fortunate to get two volunteer watermelon plants from seeds that remained in the garden from last year, surviving a few good snows. This summer I will wait a little longer before getting the juicy fruit off the vine to hear it crack open as I spear it with a long knife hoping to see that sweet, succulent strawberry color on the inside. Yum.

Maybe the humidity will bring back that humungous manna from heaven like mushrooms that popped up in my grass last summer. Unreal !! Look in earlier posts to find the blog on that one!

But the best thing is my friendly, young deer that has graced my yard in the evenings to eat my Knock Out rose bush and just look pretty. Two times I was almost in the yard with it as I crouched behind the catmintha while weeding the veggie garden. No sooner did I decide to come in the house and wash my hands but I saw the deer through my kitchen window come out from the neighbor's ivy and stand right where I was not a minute before. I am waiting to see my fox too. That was a blog as well. If you have been reading, you will remember that he/she was crippled and would rest in my flower garden during the cold winter to let the weak sun warm its bones during the day! But the spooky thing is the raccoon who came onto my deck one night while I was minding my own business watching my TV shows. You know how it is . . . you can't quite place it, but you feel as if somebody's eyes are on you, but you know you're the only one in the house. Then you look over and through the sliding glass doors in the dark are two masked eyes peering at you while you peer at the tube. Raccoons really do look like little robbers waiting for you to turn your show off and go to bed so they can sneak down your unprotected chimney and steal all your silverware. Just to show the furry ball that I was paying attention and received its vibe, I got up off the couch, grabbed a flashlight, and shone it through the glass and screen into the critter's eyes. It posed with one foot up in the air, staring back at my light, as if to say, “I'm a garden statue . .  don't mind me. You can't see me can you?”

Yes, you little nutcase!! Now don't do that again. But I would like to see my deer pop up on my deck and peer in one night while I'm watching Glee. That would be just too spiritual, and I hope I won't jump off the couch from fright but take it as a blessing.

So . . . what's your summer delight? The next time you feel as if you are swimming to your car with your three grocery bags full of hamburger meat to slap on the grill along with all the fixins, try to think cool thoughts and be thankful for the AC in your car, the freezer to put that chocolate chip mint ice cream in when you get back to your air-conditioned home and the family you get to share it with.

And if you are lucky enough to have small children still at home, then enjoy the sprinkler days of summer with your kids 'cause school will be back sooner than you think, and you'll be packing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all over again from August until next summer. Ick.

© nancy 6.19.2010

Memorial Weekend

Memorial Weekend is coming up. What are you going to do? Same 'ol, same 'ol?

Why not do something different this year. If you always go to the beach, then go to the mountains instead. If you always stay home and cook out, then go somewhere out of town and eat at a restaurant. If you're waiting for a family member to figure out a plan, you figure one out instead and go for it.

If you haven't figured it out yet . . . let me clue you in . . . life is short. Don't make it boring.

But on the other hand, I have to admit that boring is better than an accident and you find yourself hooked up to IV's and who-knows-what-else in the hospital. That's what my mother and I said one day when I was helping her after she had a heart attack which led to a triple by-pass. We thought about the days in the past that we thought were boring and thanked God for every single one!!!

We thanked God for being able to wake up in the morning with our chests uncracked and our hearts un-by-passed. We thanked Him for the time flying by slowly so we could enjoy every crawling moment. We thanked Him for home-cooked meals and not hospital cafeteria food, being able to breathe fresh air, being able to walk down a hall all by ourselves without an IV pole following us like a dog on a leash!

So even if you don't stir things up this Memorial Weekend and do something different, just enjoy doing what you normally do. Go ahead and lounge in your big chair in front of the TV with a sweet tea watching the cooking channel while someone else grills out on the deck. Enjoy the aroma of the hamburgers and hot dogs as they near their medium-rare goodness before they land on your plate next to your potato salad. Smile while you watch your children or grandchildren play with each other even if they do yell, “Mom . . .  Bobby's breathing on me! Tell him to stop!!”

Whatever you do this upcoming holiday weekend have fun and thank God for those who made it possible for you.

© nancy 5.23.2010

SUMMER GARDENS

Have you planted your summer crop yet? No?!

You think they wouldn't look great between your Black Eyed Susans and your Knock Out Roses?

Think again.

Everyone's doing it! It's the summer of “grow your own” produce. I saw baby plants lined up outside the grocery store this year just waiting to be adopted, tons more veggie plants stacked on racks at Lowe's all dressed up in pots ready to go somewhere in your yard, and a newly constructed square foot garden at my nearby church.

So get on the dirty bandwagon and catch the rake and hoe bug. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when your healthy, yellow squash plant takes over your dying zinnias and produces beautiful flowers which drop off leaving tiny buds of yellow which will grow into a delight for your tummy. If you have a spot of earth that is barren, then go right now to your neighborhood plant store or Wal-Mart where you will find all kinds of delicious things to plant and eat later when the summer is hot. Wouldn't a ripened tomato plucked straight off the vine after soaking in the hot sun's rays all day long taste really good to you after you come home from work? You could put it in between that hamburger bun to saddle up next to the patty you grilled, and the juices could mingle to drip down your chin onto that white T-shirt you just put on. Or maybe you would like to pair it with a cucumber and a zuchinni that you also grew from a tiny plant. A little poppy seed dressing would taste great sprinkled over the salad along with a couple of strawberries and blueberries you may have to buy in the organic section of your grocery store.

Heck, last year I grew my own watermelon, and I wanted to grow my own pumpkins for Halloween but somewhere along the line I forgot to buy the little seed packet. Oh well, it's not too late for me to plant one or two so that they'll be ready for me to carve the word “Boo!” into them this October. I also grew eggplant which I have to tell you is the prettiest vegetable in the garden. It shines like it's been polished to within an inch of its purple life. It's truly gorgeous . . . a photographer's dream. Can you call an eggplant “sexy”? I took the picture above of mine.

At any rate . . .  here's a trick that I learned from my older sister. Plant some sweet basil next to your tomato plants so that when you go outside to pick one for your sandwich you can also snip off a few basil leaves and lay them out over your mayonnaise under the tomatoes. Talking about good!! Yum !!! My Dad likes to put basil leaves in his mayo jar and let it mingle in the fridg. Not a bad idea. A friend of mine incorporated it into his life and names it basilnaise.

And if you've never grown okra it's a treat to watch. It gets really tall and the okra grow vertically on the stalk. The leaves are big and the flowers that come out first aren't bad either. Last summer I would pick a tomato, some okra, and an eggplant and sautee them in a bit of olive oil. They all comingled in their combined juices and the tomato acidity broke down the eggplant and made it all sweet and the okra held them all together like a group hug. It can take less than fifteen minutes to have a dish that will melt in your mouth! It's your turn to try it!!

So get outside your garden box and plant some veggies this summer. Who knows . . .  you might be the next best thing in your neighborhood since Santa Claus when you come bearing fresh gifts from your garden to their plates!

© nancy 5.16.2010

The Beach House

She drove for four and a half hours and as she got closer to her destination the worries fell off her shoulders one by one like pieces of stone chiseled from marble. As her concerns broke away from her mind, the muscles around her neck and down her back felt lighter. She found that she was sitting up straighter with every mile and felt an inch taller too! The corners of her mouth began to curl upwards, and she found herself breathing in deeply.

“Ahhh,” she moaned to herself as she turned off the AC and rolled down the windows with a button. “That's more like it.” She exhaled to the wind as it blew across her nose carrying with it the promises of sea salt, shells waiting to be found, and drying seaweed.

She would be there soon. The beach house had been in her family since she could remember. Her grandfather was a fisherman and worked very hard. She could see in her mind's eye his roughened, dry, cracked fingers as he worked a piece of driftwood into a toy for her when she was five years old. His eyes were as deep and blue as the ocean. She would swim into them when he told her bedtime stories of days of old, and she wouldn't come up for breath until she felt her own eyes closing in sleep.

One of the stories she made him tell over and over was how he built the beach house with his bare hands. He would explain to her that when he was younger and stronger, he saved what money he could to buy the isolated stretch of sand. The house started out as one room, enough for shelter from the wind and the cold. But he made it strong and the fireplace in that wood-built room was large. When he would visit his brother in the mountains or vice versa, stones would be brought back to use in the construction. Incorporated in the mortar were empty conchs and seashells of varying sizes, shapes, and colors. The mantle was made out of a huge piece of ship's wood that had drifted up on shore after a storm. Her grandfather liked to believe it came off of an eight-masted sailing vessel that found its demise on the Outer Banks, splintering into huge pieces after wrestling with a sudden hurricane. Her grandfather told her that when he met his love, he added on a bedroom, proposed, and brought his bride over the simple threshold. The additions occurred child by child until it was a warren of rooms connected by hallways and creaking, cypress doors.

She thought of all this when she turned down the sandy driveway which wound its way through the bent over, stunted trees that hid the beach house from the road's view. Whatever concerns remained within her floated off her soul and sifted themselves through the gnarled fingers of those trees which had protected the family from the outside world for three generations.

She needed to be here. Life had thrown many obstacles her way in the past year and this was the first time she was able to get away and come to this house where she felt safe.

She parked the car, hauled all her bags through the kitchen door, and found some wildflowers waiting for her in a vase on the wood counter. He had been here. Just like he promised. How did he know she was coming? It was as if he had a sixth sense about her for she could show up at any moment in time and there on the counter or on a table would be a bunch of freshly picked beach flowers and grasses to greet her.

She sat down on the well-worn couch cushions in the fireplace room and put her face in her hands. Leaning forward she cried the tears she needed to cry months before but wouldn't let herself because to do so would mean she had been defeated. At least that's what she thought at the time. She knew now that she was as strong as this house and could weather any storm. But at that time, she felt as fragile as a baby bluebird's egg cracked open and left on the ground. Drying her face with the sleeve of her shirt, she looked around to see the bowls of shells that the family had gathered placed on a table and on a shelf. The landscape above the rustic mantle was one that her grandmother had painted in oil when she was a new bride. The ones in the kitchen she painted of sea creatures and vegetables that found their way into the savory dishes she had prepared for everyone. When the new oven had arrived, her grandmother had been intimidated at first, but she was determined to master the knobs and dials. Thanksgivings were the best.

Getting up from the couch she walked out onto the deck of the screened-in porch which spanned the length of the house. There it was . . . the beautiful ocean that seemed to heal her whenever she walked into its salty waves, washing over her like a baptism to cleanse her of all her failings. She would come up out of the water and walk back onto the sand renewed in spirit.

Remembering, she reached out her hand to open the screen door which led to the walkway over the dune. Once outside she took one step and then another. She took her shoes off when she reached the sand and dug her toes into its warmth. Carrying her sandals in one hand she swung them at her side and continued walking until she felt the cold water rise up to her knees.

No one was in sight. The seagulls cried and argued with one another. They always seemed to say, “That's mine. No! It's mine. Uh uh. Uh huh!” and run each other away from the speck of sand they were claiming as their own.

Looking back up toward the house, she realized with a start that the house was now hers, claimed by a piece of paper.

Mine.

It sounded good to her heart. She felt the throbbing inside her agree and she smiled again and laughed and kicked the water up in a spray which made all the seagulls fly.

“Mine,” she cried to their flapping wings and knew she was going to be alright. She had made the right decision. This piece of sand was hers, and she looked at the ramshackle house, loving everything about it. The weathered cedar shakes on the outside. The metal roof. The long, screened-in porch, the swing on the porch, the two-story addition with its dormers, the white-washed window frames, the curtains that blew in the breeze . .  the memories.

This house would be her home where she would make new memories. It was perfect. It was time.

“Dierdra,” she heard him call over the dunes.

She looked up to see Adam, drenched in sunlight in his blue jeans, walking toward her.

“You came,” he said as he approached, holding out his arms to her.

“Yes,” was her simple reply.

Nothing more needed to be said.


© nancy 4.26.2010

RAINBOW

The closer you get . . . the more you see the hand of God.

If you don't own a camera with a macro mode or lens, then borrow a friend's Canon, Nikon, etc., and go outside. Nature is the drop in the bucket of God's perfect handiwork on earth. The closer you get inside flowers the more detail will be exposed. You will see hues that He puts together to create something colorfully in sync and burst forth the spectrum of the rainbow.

Thus we get to the topic of this blog . . . rainbows.

Think about it. Rainbows are light shot through drops of water that act like tiny prisms which refract that light into bands of color.

Therefore since God is light, then, He is all the colors of the rainbow. Do you see black or white?

Think about that for a moment.

Have you thought about it? Good. You are beginning to see the light!

Think about the rainbows you have observed in your lifetime. Did you know that you have to be at the right place at the right time to see one? If you look up the word 'rainbow' in Wikipedia you will read about why that statement is true. You will read that the colors in a rainbow go from red to violet. Here's the sequence: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Rainbows can be caused not only by a rain shower but also by other forms of water including mist, spray, and dew. You've all seen a small rainbow while jumping through the sprinkler's mist on a hot summer's day, right? Fun, huh? That should be a requirement - to jump through some rainbows this summer. What do you think?

To be specific about how a rainbow is formed, Wikipedia explains that “the light is first refracted entering the surface of the raindrop, reflected off the back of the drop, and again refracted as it leaves the drop. The amount by which light is refracted depends upon its wavelength, and hence its colour.”

Did you know that there are also moonbows? Again Wikipedia explains: “Moonbows, a lunar rainbow or nighttime rainbow, can be seen on strongly moonlit nights. As human visual perception for colour is poor in low light, moonbows are often perceived to be white.” The human eye may see only white but the truth behind the white is the colors of red through violet.

If you would like to take a picture of a rainbow, then you would need a lens with a focal length of 19 mm or less. A wide-angle lens would be required. Powerful software for stitching several images into a panorama would be helpful.

You don't want to? Okay. But I will gently urge you, the next time you see a rainbow, to think about yourself and how you can shine your light on others. Remember you are red to violet . . . not black or white.

© nancy 4.24.2010

GLEE

OMG !!! If ya'll haven't watched GLEE yet, then go to www.hulu.com and catch the episode that ran last night.

I LOVE SUE SYLVESTER !!! You VOGUE, girl ! 
 
If you are one of the few who have not gotten bitten by the Gleeful bug yet, then roll your sleeves up, go to hulu and watch from episode one until now (or buy the DVD that's out) (or just watch last night's and you'll be hooked for sure). You'll be glad you put your skin out there to be stung by the best Broadway show on the airwaves. There's singing, dancing, angst of High School days, romance, competition . . .  you name it, it's there. If you are a word nut, then you will get your fix while watching this show. The writing is fabulous and the characters deliver them with panache. Especially Sue, whom I have to admit,  is addictive. I loved her on Boston Legal (and anything else she's done, actually) but she rocks on Glee.

Don't be afraid. Just do it! Get hooked and get Gleeful. You'll be glad you did.

(c) nancy 4.21. 2010

POOKA

“Pooka? What kind of title is that, and what is she going to write about now?”

Are you asking yourself that question? Well, I have to tell you that sometimes things just get in your head at midnight and you think . . .  I'll stay up and write a blog on that. Hopefully to the delight of a Pooka!

O.kay, I won't leave you hanging. Have you ever watched the Jimmy Stewart movie by the name “Harvey”? Then you know that Harvey, in the movie, is a Pooka. I would describe him, but I've never seen him. Only Jimmy Stewart can see him.

My father had a friend who said he could see him and even had a portrait of a Pooka above a fireplace to prove it. I wonder if Dad's friend and Jimmy were also friends by Pooka association? Maybe their Pookas were cousins and Mr. Hoover and Jimmy met while they traveled together? One can only hope.

Maybe we all need a Pooka. Someone who is there for you at all times . . . during the good and the bad . . .  who listens patiently and even laughs at your witty remarks. And you laugh at his or hers or is it an 'it'? It doesn't matter. Only that it has your back. 

Anyway, your Pooka may not be six feet or taller, have big hare-like ears, and open doors for you. Maybe yours has evolved into a real live person who lets you know they are there when you wake up in the morning and check your e-mails or Facebook, and “Poof!” . . .  there they are sending you a pat on the back and a “you can do it” verbal gesture or they make you giggle with their comments when you hadn't laughed all day.

So here's to all you Pookas out there . . .  THANK YOU! And to all you Pookaless persons out there - open your eyes and look around. There may be a Pooka standing right next to you who has your back.

P.S. Did you notice I don't have an image with this blog? I'll let you ponder that one. You'll understand if you think it through or watch "Harvey".

© nancy 4.16.2010

POLLEN

Almost a four-letter word, right?

You wish you could use it in a sentence like this . . .  “Oh for pollen's sake!” But instead, you can't speak because the little critters are stuck in your throat and only a dry cough escapes your pollinated lips.

I wondered this morning what our lungs would look like if x-rayed. Would they be yellow and coated like a smoker's would be due to inhaling a foreign substance for days on end? To that question, I looked up the word 'pollen' in Wikipedia. Don't go there! The little buggers are photographed in minuscule and you can see what they really look like . . . little round or irregular shaped universes that make your life miserable if you are allergic. And believe it or not, some even have wings. Yes! So you can't get away from them. They can fly.

Did you know that the smallest pollen grain is that of the Forget-Me-Not? I'm sure you will remember that fact every time you sneeze now. Achoo!!

Did you know that the study of pollen is called palynology? I wouldn't say that pollen was a pal of any kind. I'll leave it up to you to decide a better name for its study after you've spent weeks at the pharmacy counter studying old and new remedies for the seasonal pests.

If you read what Wikipedia has to say on the subject, you will see that these little devils have sex. Right under your noses!! Literally. If I look out of my window at this moment I can tell that these creatures have been up all night having fun while I slept. It must have been quite a party.

If you continue reading you will learn new spelling bee (excuse the reference) words to add to your voluminous list. Words like: microsporangium, sporopollenenin, eudicots, colpate, intine, cuticularized, etc., etc …

These words flow from your tongue like honey from a beehive. (There's that 'B' word again).

So the question remains . . . what to do?

Stay indoors as much as possible and write a blog about it!

© nancy 4.7.2010

LIFE AND DEATH

AND SOYLENT GREEN

Whoa!!! That's a heavy subject. Are you really going to write about that you may be asking yourself?

Yes. I am.

If you are a baby boomer like I am then your mom and dad are in their 80's or 90's. But some of you
at this point in your life have already had the big boom laid on your heart and watched your precious mom and/or dad go on before you to the land where there is no more pain, no more sorrow, no more tears. That's a good thing, right? That they are in a better place . . . without you?

I feel extremely fortunate that I still have my mother and father, both who are 91 years old and counting. My Dad wants to live to be 100. (And he did.) He has the genes. His family lives long and prospers. I am praying I have those genes and the good health that goes with it, bypassing any heart problems in the bloodline. Excuse my pun!

But my mother didn't fair as well. She has struggled through two triple bypasses and recovered famously. Then she found out she has old-age diabetes like her mother had (here again I pray that passed me by while swimming in the gene pool) and has to prick her beautiful, thin-skinned fingers three or more times a day. The first time she did it, I was with her and jumped when she jumped when that little needle came out of nowhere when she pressed the button and poof! . . .  there was that little bead of blood that would tell her if she was traveling up or down on the sugar road of life. It's no big thing now.

Lately, she hasn't felt so good. We tease about Soylent Green, and I tell her that if there was a Soylent Green factory around I would take her there when she was ready, and we would get her laid out on the table where Edward G. Robinson had lain and pick out the scene she would want to see playing on the big screen surrounding her bed and pick out the music she would like to hear. We'd say what we needed to say, and she would close her eyes, take her last breath and go on, leaving all her aches and pains behind. She could go with dignity and with your mind.

But there isn't any Soylent Green factory around so she has to go through the drudgery of these last days, and I have to see her do it. That's what you get with modern medicine. We are all living longer than our bodies wanted to live and are glad of the extra time to make memories but the end is still there for one to go through. We don't get a “Get out of Jail” card.

I hope that all of you out there reading this blog can send a prayer up for my precious mother and father that they may be able to get through this . . .  what words can I write? It's awful to have to let someone you love go when you know you won't see them again any time soon.

That's what hope is for . . .  hope for the day when we all get together in a place where all our sorrows are no more, tears are no more and we are with our loved ones forever.

© nancy 3.19.2010

THE BLACK PEARL:

PART TWO

Okay, so I just wanted to show you a picture I took yesterday of the "two cats snuggling" scenario. Doesn't the little black thing look too cute with its paw resting under its sleepy head? You can't see it 'cause she's black? I know what you mean. I have to use the magnifier in PhotoElements to get in closer to see the details.

But today is a big day. The little critter is trying to open its eyes! They really are glued shut at birth, and I swear they have to pry them open one micrometer at a time once they are about a week old. For this kitty, it has started at the corner of the eyes near the nose and so it's just a tiny peephole to the world beyond that has been as black as she is up until this point. Maybe it works that way so that the retina, lens, and what have you get adjusted slowly? It didn't reckon with the flash on my camera! I keep checking every hour to see the progress. You KNOW I'm going to take a picture of the thing and blind it with the flash once it opens its beady eyes completely.

BLAM!!!

What I really wanted to write about is . . . 

do you ever wake up in the morning and feel BLAH for no apparent reason?

The coffee you had for breakfast doesn't get the motor running. The birds chirping merrily outside because Spring is springing, and they are telling the world how happy they are about it, but you feel like a rainy day on the inside so their singing is lost on your ears? You might even be asking yourself, "Is this as good as it's going to get?" as you remember the days when you wished you had more time to do all the stuff on your list . . .  take Cookie to dance practice, pick Ricky's shirts up at the cleaners, take your mom to the doctor, do laundry, shop for the dinner party you thought would be fun but is now looming in front of you and you still haven't gotten number 15 and 16 done on that list. You didn't have time to feel yucky. Or maybe you just didn't allow yourself. You took two Advil and continued checking things off your list.

Now you have more time on your hands and more time to feel everything. Maybe it's finally caught up with you so you have to feel it all now 'cause you didn't take the time to feel it all then. Great. What do you do with it? You stare out the window and feel as cloudy as the sky above and heave a sigh like Eeyore when he heard Winnie-the-Pooh's exclamation of "Good Morning!"

Eeyore responded by saying, "Good morning, Pooh Bear. If it is a good morning . . .  which I doubt."

He goes on to say that we can't all be "Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush." 

I agree Eeyore. What to do . . .  what to do.

Is this depressing enough? Here you thought you were going to read some charming, witty Part Two and it's done a 180 on you and you're feeling a bit unnerved. "Thanks a lot!" you exclaim towards me. "I thought I was having a McDonald's have-a-nice-day day.

Go get a coke and try to rev yourself back up to the happy place you were in before you read this blog.

Cheers! (That was me raising my coke to you).

Or you might try this approach. I think sometimes about a song I heard growing up. I believe it may have been a Disney cartoon based on Brer Rabbit talking to Brer Bear about his Laffin' Place . . . a secret place that Brer Rabbit likes to go to laugh. (Uncle Remus stories).

It goes something like this:

"Everybody's got a Laffin' Place 

a Laffin' Place, I know ho-ho.

Take a frown, turn it upside down 

and you'll find yours I know ho-ho."

Where's your Laffin' Place? I should use a dose of my own written medicine, find my Laffin'/Happy Place, and transport myself there right now.

Ahhh . . .  I can picture myself on a lounge chair with the breeze blowing my hair. The air smells fresh with the hint of the scents all around me. Like the water that is flowing under the pier. It has its own smell, not like the ocean or a lake, that is trapped in one place. Like the warm sun on my face that smells like sunshine and feels like a caress. Like the myriad birds flying overhead, and the leaves in the trees brushing against each other in the wind. I hear the sound of a distant motorboat and the cry of an egret. I can picture it all, breathe it all and see it all in my mind's eye. That's my Happy Place. It makes me smile.

And wouldn't you know that my beautiful momma cat, at this very moment as I am writing about a happy place, jumped up in my lap, put her paws on my chest, looked into my eyes, and began to purr?

Suddenly all's right with the world.

 

(c) nancy 3.12.2010

THE BLACK PEARL

March second, two thousand and ten at two forty-five in the afternoon saw the emergence of The Black Pearl (now affectionately known as Little Bitty).

It was one of those things where you ask yourself, “Is she or isn't she?” I've had cats all my life on and off. When I was young, I even had a cat who went into the neighbor's old, wooden shed that was part of their creepy garage. But it was 'the' spot the cat decided was good for her to birth her kitties. I didn't think it was so great. Wasn't there some spiders or possibly some snakes in there too? Somehow the kittens were brought over the yard line and into our household. They were given weird names and from that point on I have always given my cats names that others shake their heads at and comment upon its absurdity, but they had to relent in future, seeing that it was the purrfect name for that specific cat.

I now have a beautiful cat whose name is Kitty Lou Bensonhurst . . .  and that is another story.

She was supposedly abandoned as a tiny thing along with her siblings. My daughter's friend rescued them, and when I saw Kitty Lou I couldn't say no. She's as soft as a rabbit and has light blue eyes, beige body fur, and light grey-tipped ears. She's about two and a half years old and has a boyfriend. He loves to come around and sit on the window ledge and peer in adoringly trying to get a glance of his loved one. He's smitten. Can you be a smitten kitten? I digress. At any rate, my neighbor found her one day in flagrante delicto with the boyfriend in bright day light on his front porch. Thanks for being discreet, Miss Bensonhurst!

But it wasn't her time to get pregnant so they played cat and mouse (excuse my play of words) until MEOW !!!  I had to ask myself, “was she or wasn't she?” When she threw up on the rug I had a thought but vanished it. Then she began to eat and eat . . .  hmmm . . . and sleep a lot . . .  uh oh . . .  and be all lovey-dovey. I thought I better check the internet on cat pregnancy and how long it lasts.

OMG!

If my calculations were even remotely correct, I would be seeing some babies the next week!!!

But Kitty Lou wasn't very big and my friend said she thought that Kitty Lou should be bigger if she was near her due date. And I thought that maybe it meant she wasn't going to have but two kittens at the most. So I asked friends for empty boxes because the internet said you would need one for the birthing chamber and one to put the freshly licked kittens in along with a heating pad under some fresh towels.

March second came on a headache at four in the morning. One of those that last all day no matter what you do. If you could put your head in a vise and squeeze it until it all popped out, you know you would feel better and the pressure would be gone. So I stayed in bed all morning with my door closed so Kitty Lou couldn't jump up and startle my head back into more pain that I was trying desperately to pray into oblivion. Luckily, a friend had planned to come over that afternoon and at that moment when he came into the room to check on me, so did Kitty Lou. I thought she was being nurse-like, as cats can be, to make sure I was alright.

“Meow!”

“Yes, darling” as I petted her head in acknowledgment of her sweetness.

Her eyes were as big as saucers, and I thought it was because I had all the lights off for my pounding head.

“MEOW!”

“Yes, I know” as I continued to pet her head.

“REOAR!!!”

“OMG . . .  I think she's getting ready to have her kittens !” I exclaimed to my friend, lifting my poor aching head off my pillow.

“Go get some towels and the box !!” I ordered, ready to rock and roll.

Kitty Lou kept looking at me for help and all I could do was tell her she was “doing great” and soothe her by petting her. True to form, she wanted to bite me one time because of the pain and I thought of all the women who bit their husband's heads off while in labor yelling, “It's all your fault!” 

It was amazing to watch. Kitty Lou grunted just like a human when it was time to push. She meowed with fervor when the contractions made her stomach roll from her chest down to her . . . well, you know. And when her one, lone baby came out she knew just what to do without me telling her. The Black Pearl was evidence that the boyfriend had gotten lucky and Kitty Lou had gotten pregnant about 60 days prior. I'll have to check the calendar and see if it was a full moon because it had been a full moon during the night and I thought that was why I had the headache. But no.

Things happen for a reason, a friend of mine likes to say, and I'm beginning to see the light. Looking back, I had planned on being out of town on that day. But plans had changed because of my headache, so I was home instead. Also, I was supposed to have a massage the afternoon of the 2nd during that specific hour of the day. 

So there you have it!

Sometimes when you open an oyster you get a natural, white pearl and if you're really lucky, you get a black one.

I guess I got lucky.

Kitty Lou has stayed with that little critter from dawn to dusk. She's curled around it to keep it warm. But today Pearl is 5 days old and Kitty Lou meowed to go outside for the first time, so I let her. She better come back 'cause I don't know how to feed a newborn kitten, but I know I would step up to the plate and get kitty with it.

Puuuurrrrr.

© nancy 3.7.2010

A New Decade

Even when the calendar rolled over from 1999 to 2000 it seemed futuristic to me. Yet to write the numbers 2000 as the year, when writing out a check, wasn't hard to do. It was easy. A  2 and then three zeros. And if someone in the year 2000 talked with me about the year 2010, then I would think E.T. or something equally as far out and unreal. Wayyyyyy in the future. Not happening for a lonngggg time. But here it is. And writing 2010 as the year on a check shortened into 10 quickly, as in 1.1.10., That was weird. I looked at that number and it became very binary.

So does that mean we should get back to basics? Get simpler in our interior decorating style? Get back to raw fruits and vegetables? Dial it down a notch on texting and e-mails? Get back to the basics on everything?

Like relationships. Take the stress out. Love regardless. Love unconditionally. Accept imperfections. Be kind. Be generous. Without thinking first. Just be kind. Be sweet. Give and don't expect anything in return. Give regardless. Give unconditionally. Accept help unconditionally.

Like work. Am I happy? If not, change things so you can be happy. Happy is very basic.

Like play. What? You forgot how to play? That's what we learned how to do first when we were kids. Go swing on a swing or smush some play-dough. But don't eat it like you did when you were a kid. You really do have to learn from your mistakes. Make time to blurt out “I Love You” for no apparent reason and throw your arms around that person and then go back to playing with the sand in the sandbox. Make sure you're barefoot.

So . . .  is your life too complicated? It's gotten into the higher digits and the stress level has increased with the numbers? You're not happy as many minutes as you used to be? Your relationships have fallen by the wayside along with your sense of humor?

Break it down to zeros and ones. Breathe deeply and take a moment. Get back to the basics in this decade. Dial it down and take time to enjoy living. Breathing. Being.

After all, we were supposed to stroll in a garden. Stop and smell the roses.

© nancy 2.11.2010

THE GOLDEN YEARS

I would like to meet the person who made up the term, The Golden Years, and give them a piece of my mind! The Golden Years. Really?

I think the golden years of a person's life is when one is young. That's when you have all the energy in the world. Your body is in the best shape. Your mind is less cluttered with all the life experiences you will have, both fantastically good and tragically sad. The world is your oyster and there's a pearl growing inside your shell. You haven't lived long enough to be pessimistic and jaded. There's a blue bird singing on your shoulder and the future is bright.

But . . .  then you get older. Not only is the future not as bright as you imagined but your eyesight is getting dimmer to boot. Thanks!

All that High School football you played is catching up to you in your joints, and every time the weather takes a turn for the worse, so does your neck, back, and knees which got clobbered over and over on the playing field to the roaring cheers from the bleachers. Now you ask yourself, “Was it worth it?” and you reply with a smile that you'd do it all over again if your knees weren't bad.

So, you take up golf, but as you have gotten older, so has your thumbs which can't quite grasp the club as elegantly, your back is out of alignment most of the time as well, so your swing runs wide and the ball lands in the rough or you try to dig it out of the sand trap like a cat in a litter box. Thank God for the nineteenth hole where you can soothe your golden aches and pains with a drink, and I'm not talking coca-cola.

And if you're a woman, you just don't age like a fine wine as a man does who, if they were a nerd in High School, look like Clark Gable at sixty. But you, on the other hand at the ripe old age of fifty-something, look like an elephant with all the wrinkles and the sags and your memory is on holiday for good.

The Golden Years? Bah humbug. And then The Market crashed and all those who were trying to tell themselves they were in their Golden Years and could relax with their arthritis are now greeters at Wal-Mart.

Something's wrong with this picture, right?

If you are reading this and you are young . . . it's your golden years!!!! 

If there is something you want to do . . . like climb Mount Everest . . .  DO IT NOW. Don't get old and think it's getting better and you find yourself making a Bucket List of the things you wished you had done when you were younger. DO THEM NOW. Do you really want to jump out of a plane when you're eighty-five? Yes? Go for it, then. But go for it NOW while you have good knees to land on. Don't wait for your golden years in the sunset of your life. The key is the sun is setting and then the light goes out. Do it while the sun is up in the sky and you can see!!!! There's no time like the present. At least right now in the present moment you have that moment, so take a bucketful of those moments and DO IT NOW. Your moments aren't going to roll over like your cell phone minutes and you'll have more minutes the next month to live. Nope. It's like a woman's ovaries. They only have, at birth, a certain number of eggs to fry and when the carton is empty, there ain't no more.

So this is your still-small-blog-voice telling you to enjoy your golden years because it is NOW. If you've got air miles, then go now to St. Lucia! Or jump out of a plane. Or climb Mount Everest. Or tell that person that you want to spend the rest of your life with them!!!

Remember . . . NOW is your golden years. Tomorrow the sun may set forever.

© nancy 1.27.2010

The Fox

A few days ago I was opening a sliding glass door to my backyard and heard a rustling of remaining fall leaves. I looked towards the noise and saw that I must have caught an animal off guard who was minding his own business in the last fragments of warmth produced by the afternoon sun which would quickly leave us all a bit colder in about an hour when it would melt into the western sky. My mind at this point was trying to connect the picturesque dots to form a conclusion. Was I seeing a really big raccoon? No. At first glance, the marks around it's eyes along with its crouched position led me to that error of deduction. The animal was very still and looking right at me with great stillness. I continued to look back and realized  . . . Aha! It was a fox.

Even though the cold air was flowing past me from the chilly 30 something degrees, which was forecasted correctly the night before, I kept the door open to observe my wild visitor. It was unusual to see a fox during the daylight hours so I took it as a gift. I looked into his unblinking eyes and tried to send it a clear message through my own eyes, “I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay. Please stay.”

We remained like that until I decided he wouldn't go away, and I slowly slid the door closed and stood inside for a warm moment, watching. I decided to risk losing sight of him by backing away seamlessly from his view to stand behind the door frame. Now I could walk briskly to my camera that was on the bookshelves close by. Coming back into position, I once again moved in slow motion to bring the camera up to my eye so that I could capture the moment. After all, how many times have I had the pleasure of a fox in my yard during the day! He began to move and that was when I noticed that he was limping. It was hurt.

I happened to have my cell phone in my pocket and knew I had my Vet's number in it. My veterinarian's practice is literally just around the corner and rather than lose sight of this creature I pressed the vet's number in hopes that they would know who to call and do it for me. They did and I waited for a call back, taking pictures of this lone animal who had decided my yard was good for a late afternoon nap. I wondered if it was in pain as it settled in dragging its injured leg beneath him. Was it too painful to even sleep? My heart went out to it, and I was glad at the same time that my cat was inside and wouldn't come across a resting fox in it's own back yard startling it into a fuzzy, spitting frenzy.

What seemed like a billion pictures later, my doorbell rang and a lady animal officer was at the ready with a long pole with a noose at the end of it. I asked that he/she be taken to the Veterinary School here in town. She was excited to see the fox, but when I showed her through my camera lens where the sleeping fox was camouflaged in the leaves, she couldn't see it. I suppose if I didn't see him lay down earlier, and train my camera on him, I wouldn't have been able to spot him either since the sun was doing its thing, vanishing with rapid speed to parts unknown leaving the fox
invisible in nature.

On another note, but in the same vein . . .  I have a friend who has been teaching me about Animal Totems. It's nothing new. Indians believed in totems for centuries. You may have seen one or two wooden ones and were told the significance of animals to humans along with their meaning. So she looked “fox” up online and told me what seeing a fox could mean to me on that day. What follows is my rendition of a synopsis and not plagiarism, so please excuse any similarity in wordage (actually I'll put things in quotes for my own simplicity):

If I take this fox showing up in my yard during the sunlit hours as a sign, then it would read something like this: “It is a time to be careful and discriminating, aware of your communication abilities, and be alert to your surroundings. Fox teaches how to be still and silent and all qualities of patience”. The fox may be showing you “a new world and creative process opening up”. (These quotes are taken from starstuffs.com if you are interested.)

Interestingly enough I am venturing into a new world at this very moment in time . . . going back to school. At my ripe old age of 57, that's me jumping completely out of my box. But like the fox who ventured out into the light of day to become visible to me, I will take it as a good sign that I am doing the right thing but will take care to be discriminating and alert to my surroundings.

Thank you my foxy friend for showing up and looking at me straight in the eye. I hope I read your mind. Maybe you were just telling me it would be a good time to take an afternoon nap???


© nancy 1.13.2010